Acceptable Emotional Service

By Bob Myhan

Jesus said, “you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:29-31) He went on to say, “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets.” (Matt. 22:40)

Faithful obedience to these commandments constitutes a life of full service. The heart is the center of emotion, conscience, mind and will. Here, it is distinguished from the soul, mind and strength (will). Therefore, it probably refers to man’s emotional center, in particular. Jesus is saying that one’s entire inner being must be involved in service to God. One must also render social service by loving his neighbor as himself.

Let us consider the necessity and nature of acceptable emotional service.

Unemotional service is not acceptable, for acceptable service must come from the heart.

Bondservants, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ; not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as bondservants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with goodwill doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. (Eph. 6:5-8)

But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness. (Rom. 6:17-18)

Service and sacrifice are nothing without love.

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. (1 Cor. 13:3)

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. (James 4:8)

Acceptable emotional service will be accompanied by pure speech.

“Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.” (Matt. 12:34-35)

A heart that is not kept with all diligence cannot produce acceptable service.

Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life. (Prov. 4:23)

Serving God out of love is natural when we consider His love for us.

We love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

Dear reader, are you rendering acceptable emotional service; that is, emotional service from a pure heart? &

The Fourfold Will of God #4

By Bob Myhan

Fourth, there is the circumstantial will of God, which is what He desires of man in the circumstance of man’s sin. That is, man having defeated God’s ideal will through sinning, God desires that man be saved from the consequences of sin.

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Tim. 2:1-4)

And, because it is God’s desire for all men to be saved, He has provided salvation through His Son, Jesus. Because God  cannot save man in his sin, He commands man to repent.

Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. (Acts 17:30)

Just as man can—and does—defeat the ideal will of God, man can—and does—defeat the circumstantial will of God.

The four facets of God’s will can, perhaps, be better comprehended in the context of God’s eternal purpose, which is to give eternal life to all those who choose to receive it.

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10)

 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” (John 10:27-28)

Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began (Titus 1:1-2)

Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began (2 Tim. 1:8-9)

To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ; to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph. 3:8-11)

Though the angels are a higher order of being than man (Ps. 8:4-6) and were created before man, they were created with a view to being used by God as intermediaries between Him and man.

Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation? (Heb. 1:14)

Though man was created last in point of time, he was the first in point of plan. God wanted a being that was capable of choosing to be like Him in character. Therefore, man, as he was first created, was as much like God as a created being could be.

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Gen. 1:26-27)

“Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, But they have sought out many schemes." (Eccl. 7:29)

Adam and Eve were, indeed, created upright. Everything they needed was provided for them—even responsibilities, both positive and negative. The man was to tend and keep the garden. The woman was to be his helper. And they were to refrain from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:15-18; 3:1-3). They were also to procreate and exercise dominion over the earth and all other living things.

Just as the earth is far enough away from the sun not to be burned up by it yet close enough not to freeze, man had to be placed far enough away from God that he could not “walk by sight” but close enough to God that he could “walk by faith.”

"And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, 'For we are also His offspring.'" (Acts 17:26-28)

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor. 5:6-7)

Adam and Eve chose to disobey God and were cast out of the garden (Gen. 3:1-24). And Abel was the first in a long line of individuals to walk by faith, thereby pleasing God (Gen. 4:1-4; Heb. 11:4-40). &